Colorado Real Estate Journal - September 2, 2015
Since the Living Building Challenge, the world’s most stringent green building rating system, was released in 2006, the International Living Future Institute has been steadily releasing initiatives that further support regenerative design in order to accelerate the development of a built environment that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. This year, ILFI launched the Living Community Challenge 1.0, which expands the general framework of the Living Building Challenge to encompass blocks, neighborhoods, campuses and cities. By addressing development on a larger scale, efficiencies can be maximized and the balance we seek between the built and natural environment can be hastened. LCC 1.0 is set up for two certification levels – living community certification, in which all 20 imperatives are met, and petal community certification, in which all imperatives under at least three out of seven different petals are met. Under petal certification, one of the petals must be water, energy or materials, and the project also must meet the requirements of limits to growth, and inspiration and education. Understanding that master planning can take years to complete, LCC incorporates a master plan compliance stage into the process, which allows early efforts to be acknowledged and can help build excitement for the future development. Certification is based on actual performance; therefore, after all the imperatives are met, the development must be operational for one year prior to review. Many of the 20 LCC imperatives are taken directly from the Living Building Challenge with some slight adaptations for scale. The stringent requirements for net zero water, net positive energy and red list material compliance remain the most difficult in Colorado. The largest changes are seen in the health and happiness petal, which focuses heavily on community and resiliency. Imperative No. 7, civilized environment, calls for a community hub and programs for food, recreation, and car, bike and tool sharing, as well as a dedicated person to oversee and perpetuate the programs. A preservation plan must be created to inventory and protect historically significant sites in an effort to retain ties to the past. Imperative No. 8, healthy neighborhood design, incorporates trail connections and opportunities for recreation, as well as a health and wellness education plan that must be kept current. Imperative No. 10, resilient community connections, includes strategies that foster resiliency through infrastructure, planning and communication. It states that a secure shelter must be provided for 100 percent of the residents to congregate in an emergency situation. Backup generators must be provided for all facilities, in addition to single-family residences, and sensitive infrastructure must be kept out of the flood plain. Community safety is cultivated through the use of a neighborhood watch program, and disaster response plans must be disseminated with trained and assigned block captains. The marriage between community and resiliency is key to enabling the built environment to rebound effortlessly, as nature does, and the LCC will make great strides in building this connection. Staying true to the commitment of sharing knowledge, IFLI provided pattern language tools, which are meant to serve as a starting point for project teams, and invited others to submit their own patterns to share. The two that are available now are “San Francisco Living Community Patterns,” developed by the San Francisco Planning Department and ILFI, and “Child-Centered Planning: A New Specialized Pattern Language Tool,” developed by Jason McClellan. A few examples of these patterns include urban rewilding and blue green streets, which marry vegetation and water treatment, grower/maker spaces and unstructured play where children can interact with the environment like they would in nature, encouraging a sense of exploration and need for tactile investigation. The guides also provide valuable real-world case studies that showcase the patterns in use. The Living Community Challenge is not for the faint of heart or those content with the status quo. It is for visionaries – those who see the potential of what could be and those who decide to do today what could be put off until tomorrow. In Jason McClellan’s article “Cities Are Now,” published in the winter 2015 issue of Yes! Magazine, he stated, “Human behavior is shaped in large part by our ability to pursue what we can imagine.” The Living Community Challenge provides a vision. Luckily, ILFI also provides research, resources and current pilot cases, which demonstrate that this is not just a pipe dream.